


Safekeeping

by orphan_account



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Crack, Gen, Oneshot, Silly, Tentacle Monsters, Trapped In Elevator, minor profanity, not in that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 20:45:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11066787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Loki accidentally gets himself and the Avengers stuck twenty feet below ground in a collapsed lift. It falls to him to get them out, and while the end result is successful his methods are... somewhat less appreciated.





	Safekeeping

**Author's Note:**

> Just a short, silly oneshot I started a few years ago and finally got around to finishing. Hope you enjoy!

It was cramped in the lift. And hot.

Tony shifted uncomfortably against the hard, dented wall at his back and massaged the small lump on his forehead. He’d taken a rough knock through his helmet, but, all things considered, they’d recovered pretty well from the fall; landing onto a dogpile made of sturdy Asgardians and one surprised supersoldier had lessened the impact for Bruce, Natasha, and Clint, and Tony had fortunately been wearing his suit. Still was, in fact, but he itched to take it off—while the inside may have been padded Tony felt like he’d been sitting in a car for three hours after doing a fender bender hit-and-run. With a train.

Not so different from reality, to be honest.

It was mostly Loki’s fault, of course. The manic problem child had appeared mid-battle and begun attacking everything in sight—friend or foe, much to Doom’s irritation and Thor’s hopeful delight—looking for all the world like he was having a blast. Steve had ordered them to try and ignore him; Loki hadn’t seemed like he was _trying_ to kill anyone, really, just fucking around, so Doom was named the bigger threat.

But Loki didn’t like being ignored, oh no, and had the _brilliant_ idea to lure them into a nearby service elevator by wearing an uncanny Doom-inspired illusion, intending to trap them inside for the sin of apathy. Or something. Tony still wasn’t one-hundred percent sure what had been going on in the mad god’s head, but he was still pissed about it.

What Loki clearly hadn’t planned was being trapped _with_ the Avengers after Doom, who shared the rest of the blame for their situation, blasted the fleeing trickster back inside and severed the elevator cables, his laugh echoing the whole way down.

All in all, they felt pretty stupid for falling for it.

The bright light of Tony’s helmet display illuminated the dark space well enough. Most of them sat on the battered floor, nursing small bruises and cuts and shooting furious scowls towards Loki’s back. Loki, for his part, knelt in the corner opposite Tony and ignored them, hands glowing with a faint green light as he messed around with… something. Tony wasn’t sure what he was doing, but hoped it was—for once—harmless.

Thor had been attempting to pry open the doors and was failing horribly—they’d been bent at an awkward angle and jammed shut against the walls of the now partially-visible elevator shaft, refusing to budge. The lift itself seemed stuck; there was a sizable dent in the ceiling where Mjölnir had pushed against it in Thor’s effort to fly them out. They didn’t bother asking Bruce to try, nor did he offer—the Hulk could have torn through the top of their prison like tissue paper, but its occupants would be far from unscathed in the process.

Thor gave up with a mighty huff, dusting his hands on his cape while he took a seat on the floor. It was no good. They’d have to wait for a rescue from S.H.I.E.L.D. or hope for a miracle to get them out sooner.

As if summoned by the thought, an awful hissing, gurgling noise echoed off the walls of their small enclosure and all eyes turned in alarm to Loki, who was casually wrestling with the source.

The... _thing_ in question was a miniature eldritch abomination, Tony observed with disgust. A small, writhing mass of black, tangled tentacles and feelers covered in a sickly green sheen, it seemed more shadow than anything, semi-translucent and wiggling... though Loki handled it as though it were very much made of solid matter. It also made no sound at all when he popped it into his mouth.

“Um. What? What the hell?”

Loki appeared to roll the monstrosity across his tongue and to one side of his cheek before answering Tony around the squirming cantrip. “Safekeeping.”

As he spoke, a single tendril poked out of the corner of his lips for a moment before retreating back inside like a feather from hell.

“Oh my god,” Clint said.

Tony privately agreed. He looked to Loki’s brother in desperation, hoping that he would be as revolted as the rest of them, but Thor only shrugged. Clearly Loki’s unsafe magical practices were not a recent development.

_Or everyone from Asgard is insane._

“Didn’t your parents ever teach you to not put strange things in your mouth when you were a kid?” Tony asked, and promptly looked horrified with himself. Mental fingers crossed, he silently hoped Loki would not dignify him with another verbal response.

_Hallelujah._ He relaxed when Loki shot him an unimpressed glare, lips clamped blessedly shut. Behind Tony, a cross-legged Bruce sighed quietly in mutual relief. Loki went back to ignoring them and set to work on another spell—or maybe part of the same one, Tony couldn’t tell. This time the genius had to turn away.

_It’s what I get,_ he thought morosely while Loki hummed to himself. _For trying to figure out magic._ Well, consider that particular lesson learned.

* * *

Bruce’s watch beeped 1A.M. before anyone stirred from their corners of the lift and, surprise surprise, Loki was the guilty party doing the moving-about. Tony didn’t even need to open his eyes where he dozed on the floor to confirm it; no one else but that tall bastard would have such a cheery-sounding gait at a time like this. Delighted at the prospect of unleashing retribution upon the soul who had trapped them in there, probably.

Or maybe just reveling in their collective misery. Tony was pretty sure everyone needed to piss at this point.

Thor made a groggy noise that sounded like he had been stepped on, and considering who was doing the stepping around Tony was not at all surprised. Loki didn’t offer any apologies, and no one really expected him to.

Tony was almost too tired to care what the trickster was up to, but his curiosity—however ill-advised—forced one of his eyelids open anyways. Loki was messing about in the furthest corner of the decrepit elevator, but Thor’s body blocked the view of whatever his younger brother was doing to the floor. Tony hoped Loki wasn’t planning on unleashing the tentacle monster inside the elevator; if he did, the genius was at least comforted with the thought that he would meet a swift death, given his close proximity to Bruce.

“Hold this down,” Loki was saying to Thor, lifting his brother’s unresistant hand from his closed eyes and directing it to something Tony couldn’t see. The trickster no longer sounded like he was speaking around a mouthful of marbles, and this would’ve deeply alarmed Tony if he’d only been slightly more awake. Thor just groaned sleepily and did as directed, slinging his free arm over his face while Mjölnir served as his uncomfortable-looking pillow. Loki shuffled around a bit more, and at that point Tony stopped caring what they were doing and went back to sleep.

Only to jerk awake some time later when the elevator gave a terrifying lurch and began to, very slowly, rise.

Loki clapped his hands together, looking far more delighted than the situation warranted as the magical shadow-creature he had nursed in his mouth hauled them steadily upwards. The sound of metal groaning against the rocky walls of the elevator shaft grated in their ears, and a longer, deeper noise—a dying whale song from the deepest nope-reaches of the ocean—accompanied it in disturbing harmony. Tony could see three very long, very large tentacles grasping the top of the broken door frame, and was certain that there were many more outside the battered lift. Everyone, now alert, stared at the trickster in mixed horror and astonishment.

“I’m gonna kill Doom,” Bruce said thickly, covering his mouth as the lift swayed. Steve patted him consolingly on the shoulder.

“I think there might be a line,” he told him frankly, nodding towards Loki whose green eyes glittered with the promise of murder.


End file.
